The New American Dream

The New American Dream is about the pursuit of interestingness instead of happiness. Penelope says, "you shouldn’t focus on happiness, but rather, on making your life interesting."

The New American Dream is fifty-three pages long and does not include case studies and in depth analysis. This bothers some people. Most of what is in the book can be found on her blog. This bothers some people. Penelope's work here is not revolutionary. You guessed it, this bothers some people. I'm really not interested in these complaints. While this criticism might be relevant to academicians steeped in the theoretics and or all of the following: sociology, social anthropology, ethnography, it most certainly is not relevant to people who are beating their brains out trying to work, live, achieve fulfillment and enjoy life.

To begin with, Penelope has been writing on her blog since 2001. I might pay someone fifteen bucks just to spend a couple of weeks wading through her material to find this stuff. Here's the thing, even if you were to find every blog post that points in this book's direction, you'll not be able to synthesize it and produce content similar to what's in her book. And therein lies Ms. Trunk's value.

Penelope Trunk has been writing and offering career advice since the late 1990's. Her expertise is in career advice and making sense out of workplace / career relevant trends in the Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, Gen-Yers and Gen-Zers (though most of the latter is yet to come). She truly has a God-given talent when it comes to pouring over the masses of data and coming up with observations and advice of value. Actually, Penelope didn't invent her interestingness theory/reality. It's already there. She merely culled the relevant behavior and experiences of each generation, but mostly Gen-Y, and wrote about her observations.

Along with establishing her interestingness basis in the book's intro, Penelope sets the stage by saying that a career allows one the ability to "...try out what works in your life and figure out who you are and what you want."

Chapter II - Redefine Your Relationship to Work

Old work ways are out. Saving and putting life off until retirement is out. Waiting until latter years to do good is out. This direction is similar to my own philosophy of, Oz is the Yellow Brick Road. Life is about what you do on the road, not at a destination.

Chapter III - Find the Right Job for You

Penelope lists attributes of desireable companies to work for and offers tips to optimize your job.

Chapter IV - Financial Freedom is a False Promise

Job promotions and fractional pay raises are out. Look for training and other opportunities that will make you of value to others.

Chapter V - Authenticity Will Get You What You Want

Includes more career advice and describes traits of today's irreplaceable worker.

Chapter VI - The Trick to Being a Life Long Learner

Penelope talks about unschooling, Gen-Z and life long learning.

Conclusion - Penelope discusses career uncertainity, its value and how to embrace it.

I highly recommend reading this book, especially if you're an explorer.

While Penelope's book is of value to those of us who are beating our brains out trying to work, live, achieve fulfillment and enjoy life, there is another segment in society that will find greater value in it. I'll tell you about them in my next post.

Hint: I reviewed Penelope's book Brazen Careerist five years ago. The spirit of my next post on The New American Dream is similar.